Here is the place
by potionwine
Summary: Ouran set in The Hunger Games. Those who lose the war will pay the price. The world is always changing yet nothing really changes. When the new government calls for tributes, Hitachiin Hikaru enters the arena with every intention of making it out alive and back to his twin. ―Complete―
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Here is the place

**Characters:** Hikaru PoV. All named characters involved herein exist in the manga canon.

**Rating:** T, or if you can read The Hunger Games, you can read this.

**Disclaimer:** Ouran High School Host Club belongs to Hatori Bisco and related companies. The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins and related companies.

**Spoilers:** The entire Hunger Games series even though no THG character will appear herein, hence why this is not a crossover. Also, you will find that it is much easier if you know the whole Ouran canon even though there are no specific spoilers given this is obviously AU.

**Dedication:** To everyone who loves Ouran and who loves THG, and especially to those who love both. As a reader you will need to repose a certain level of faith in my ability to fuse something as light, fluffy and feel-good as Ouran together with the heavy, depressing and important social critique and commentary of THG. I will not disrespect THG by glorifying the instruments and sources of oppression even though Ouran is all about immense privilege and wealth. If you can trust me to do this over the course of the story, or if you have already done so, I thank you.

This is also specifically for **Think. Analyze. BeYou** and **Clarrolx**, two of my readers who were told that I was considering writing such a story and yet neither of them discouraged me from this insanity. Particularly, **Think. Analyze. BeYou **put forward this idea in a message to me that I refused to read because I hadn't finished the books and I didn't want to be spoiled, but when I finished I came up with idea and wrote it and when I went back to my inbox to search for the reader who said she loved THG, I realized that she'd already suggested I write something along these lines. So here's to you, your creativity and your foresight.

Finally, if it matters to any of you as a reader, I have finished the Ouran manga and anime in full, as well as THG books and the available movie(s).

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**CHAPTER ONE**

_Deep in the meadow, under the willow_

_ A bed of grass, a soft green pillow _

_Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes _

_And when again they open, the sun will rise. _

_Here it's safe, here it's warm _

_Here the daisies guard you from every harm _

_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true _

_Here is the place where I love you._

_– Mockingjay, Epilogue_

This time last year, the world as Hikaru knew it ended.

It began with the girl who stood up to President Suou. It finished with the peasants storming the Capitol and winning. The comfortable life that Hikaru once had was annihilated with shocking speed and finality. Amidst the terror and confusion he came to understand the depths of the commoners' hatred and anger, and what that would mean for him and his kind.

_His kind._

It would have been terrible enough if he were merely Capitol born and bred. But he's not just that. He is a Hitachiin. His family overflowed with gold and jewels. They occupied some of the highest rungs of high society. Their name was so prestigious and their extravagant parties so celebrated; the beauty of the members of their family was so renowned that they dominated the posters and advertising campaigns, and individually each of them had a sense of style so powerful that collectively they dictated the fashions of the city.

In short, they are the very picture of what the Prefectures think is wrong with the Capitol, and now all of the past wrongs will be avenged on them.

With every passing day Hikaru has been discovering more and more of how many wrongs were committed and how grievous they were – _are_. Since the media systems had been taken over by the commoners, they have made it a point to use it as a platform for their immense pain... Pain that had been carefully kept out of sight and out of mind in the old cosseted Capitol.

Kaoru thinks that they should have known, or at least guessed, of the suffering elsewhere. After everything collapsed, Kaoru told him that it seems so obvious with hindsight that the commoners must have been hurting, because how can anyone be fine with willingly sending their children to death each year?

But Hikaru knows that his twin is a better person than him. Of the two of them Kaoru is more easily moved to compassion and Kaoru is more sensitive, with a greater innate capacity for kindness. Hikaru is not good at putting himself into the shoes of someone else. He remembers the boy he was before the destruction of his home. To be honest, he simply didn't give a fuck. His life was glorious. it was exciting and enviable and filled with joy and pleasure. There is nothing on earth as enjoyable as privilege, and Hitachiins were its definition.

It's not like suffering didn't exist in the Capitol either. Kaoru had gasped in horror and warned him never ever to say that in public unless he wants to be lynched. Hikaru gets that there is no way to compare the suffering of these commoners to that of the Capitol denizens, but what his point really is is that: people are always going to feel sad no matter how much they have, and there will always be people who have less. It's relativity. Hikaru's classmates are uglier than him and so they spend their time crippled by low self-esteem and bitter jealousy. The majority of their associates have less money than the Hitachiins and as a result force themselves to do whatever is necessary to climb as far up as they can go no matter how unhappy it might make them. These pains were considered enormous to them. They were consumed by it.

That's why Hikaru doesn't like wasting time on trying to alleviate other people's suffering. Because he thinks it can't be done. If that makes him sound frighteningly selfish, it's because he is. People will find something to suffer about, or they will create their own suffering. Going about trying to help random people like a saint is incredibly stupid. You'd only burn yourself out fast and become empty and dead yourself. It's enough having to cope with the daily worries of the people around you, the people you really actually care about.

Even now, who will bother to pick up a fallen Hitachiin? Who, in the absolute mess of a society they now find themselves in, will show pity and mercy? Who will remind themselves of other people's losses when their own is so fresh in their minds?

Not the rebels, that's for sure.

People are all alike. It's an eye for an eye. The commoners make it out that them Capitol people are _monsters_ because of how they have been oppressed and wounded. The Games were horrific, they wail, and then in the next breath make a decision to create a new Games except the participants would be Capitol children.

If Hikaru's privilege has made him morally inferior, he does not see that their lack of privilege has taught them anything that makes them superior. If anything it makes them eager to gain power only to repeat history except with themselves as winners this time round. All there was, and all there is, and all that will ever be is power. He and his kind wielded power and they used it; now the power has changed hands and the opponents are using it.

And this cynicism is exactly why Hikaru is tougher than his brother.

This is exactly why Hikaru must be prepared to volunteer if the worst comes to pass.

Because today, they will face their first reaping.

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Notes

Japan is divided into prefectures, so I have used that in lieu of districts.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

They have been kept in the dark about the rules, about whether or not the structure of the Games will change.

It is a very clever move. Certainty is comforting, even if the thing that one is certain about is bad. Uncertainty is much more difficult to handle, and it preys especially viciously on the minds of the curious. Both Hikaru and his beloved twin are naturally extremely inquisitive, yet the both of them have been trying to be strong for the other, which only means that they have been dying inside privately.

Kaoru is a wreck because Ageha is dead. It was the morning the enemy forces closed in on the city centre, two and a half days before the Capitol fell and the war ended. They were sleeping when the missiles found their targets. It's not that the upper classes hadn't tried to escape, but that they were already besieged. However, even so they were in quite a strong position due to the excellent security features and reinforcements built into their buildings as well as their stockpile of resources. Perhaps they could have lasted. As it was, some Capitol people must have turned traitor, for the rebels knew where to hit and had developed the sort of firepower necessary to score those hits in the first place.

In the pandemonium that followed, everybody operated on instinct or blind panic. Kaoru's natural instinct has always been to seek out Hikaru before anything and everything else, but that was the one thing he could not and should not have done that day because their eight-year-old sister was sleeping beside him while Hikaru had been rostered to take the night watch. So when the bombs hit, Kaoru should have and did evacuate their baby sister from the building... Except he refused to run far away like everyone else, refused to leave without Hikaru. Being actually awake at the time of the attack, Hikaru had his wits about him – once he'd checked that his siblings had left, he'd also gotten himself out to relative safety.

Hikaru doesn't know if Kaoru tried to stash Ageha somewhere or if he told Ageha to follow the crowd and flee on her own. What Hikaru does know is that Kaoru let himself be separated from Ageha in order to find him; the brothers caught sight of each other in the mass of people but the joy of their reunion was short-lived as they realized that Ageha had gone back in to the building to search for the two of them. The integrity of the walls had been compromised by the explosions, and with their own eyes they saw the stone come down in an enormous plume of dust, crushing their sister to death.

The weight of this guilt and shame is pushing Kaoru to madness. He can't even distract himself from it for a single second – all of their tools of self-expression is gone, taken away from them. No more sewing machines, no more fabric and thread, no more paint and easel, no more cameras and cosmetics, no more flowers and ribbons.

But with the massive amount of corpses littering the streets condolences have long run dry, and now is the time to do whatever it takes to survive.

"Kaoru," Hikaru says, lowering himself to his knees to bring himself down to eye level. His voice is so gentle that he genuinely sounds like Kaoru, and he makes sure that his movements are slow and measured when he proceeds to touch the boy sitting on the bed, who looks so fragile and _absent_.

After far too long, Kaoru focuses that blank gaze on him.

"We have to dress now," Hikaru tells him, keeping a tight rein over his own nervousness and dread. Of course they would make the Capitol kids dress in their finery too. The quality of their clothing symbolizes the excess that they have enjoyed, and is simultaneously the evidence that indicts them of their crime.

It comes as no surprise that Kaoru obediently gets up to wear whatever Hikaru had laid out for him. These days Kaoru always looks like he wouldn't mind dying, which scares the heck out of Hikaru. It's almost like he thinks he can exchange his life for Ageha's; he's just not thinking straight anymore. For Hikaru's part, his own grief has manifested in the form of rage – this fury is not hot like fire, it is cold and deadly like ice. It makes everything clearer, sharper, more flagrantly cruel. The postwar Hikaru has suddenly become personally capable of inhumanity instead of the distanced and detached hive mind type of public savagery. Mostly people don't feel like they bear individual responsibility when they have only condoned something, not perpetuated it.

Is one as bad as the other?

Hikaru used not to think about such things – too philosophical, not enough practical application. Kaoru occasionally did. One of their closest friends frequently did. _All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing_, Mori-senpai once told him. Mori-senpai also said that the very fact that Hikaru had no need to ponder such issues was itself the surest sign of privilege. _Some people can't walk away_, he'd said in his characteristically deep and grave tones. Because it affects them, they can't _not_ think about it. It is constantly near the top or at the top of their list of concerns. It follows that being able to _choose_ whether to care or not to care is the single greatest luxury of all.

He's a wise one, that Mori-senpai. That much was obvious before, and even more obvious now that the tables have turned. Not caring about the Games is no longer an option. Hikaru wonders if any of his friends are still alive. He hasn't seen or heard from them since the uprisings began.

Hikaru brushes Kaoru's hair for him and clips the last of the jewels they own into those red locks. The hair isn't as glossy and soft as it used to be, and its colour is also somehow less vibrant. "Done." Hikaru doesn't try to go for cheerful as that would be grotesque in the circumstances. Kaoru rises to his feet and urges Hikaru to sit so that he can repay the favour. He doesn't even glance at the mirror, doesn't even check it over. Once the toast of the town, he doesn't care anymore what he looks like.

And then there is nothing more except to march out and meet their fate.

They join the people assembling in the square, encountering many familiar faces as they go. Hikaru doesn't feel any relief at all. While the Hitachiins have the widest social circles of anyone around, the twins have been much less successful than their parents at establishing real and meaningful friendships. He can count on one hand the number of friends who'd meant enough to him to have crossed his mind over the terrible weeks.

Everyone appears to be keeping their distance from this one boy. Hikaru knows who it is before he comes into view – the late President Suou's grandson. They are acquainted, but barely. Since this child represents a scandal in the President's family, he has never been allowed out much. Hikaru had heard the rumours that he'd been shut up at home like a prisoner by his own grandmother, and his lot in life does not seem to have improved with her downfall.

Today, purely because of who he's related to, this boy is completely and utterly _fucked_. There is no kind way to put it. He will not escape the arena, and the revenge that will be exacted from him will be feral and bloodthirsty. The thought of how merciless it will be nearly provokes sympathy from Hikaru. _Nearly._ He catches himself in time. This boy is nothing special to him, and he can't afford to care.

Yet, beside the blond boy stands another, just one other, unmistakeable even if Hikaru hadn't known him personally. Black-haired, black-eyed, bespectacled, aloof and radiating a potent 'better-than-you' vibe – he can only be an Ootori. Kyouya, to be exact, youngest of the four, and apparently the stupidest as well. Hikaru would have thought any Ootori would know better than to continue in the company of anyone with the surname Suou. Everybody in the Capitol knows that if there's a family more interested in or more skilled at self-preservation, it's this one.

_Come on,_ Hikaru barely refrains from rolling his eyes in disgust at the two. Even the Suou boy knows it, because he keeps pushing his stubbornly suicidal friend away as large tears roll down his admittedly beautiful face. The idiot shouldn't be crying. Why give them the satisfaction? Hikaru himself may be poor at controlling his emotions, but this guy is in a whole other league – it's like he doesn't even try to control it! All of his feelings are just... _splattered_ out of him in whichever direction, indiscriminate and messy like vomit and equally impossible to ignore.

Off in a cordoned area stands the father of this boy. No mother. She must be dead, then. Probably killed to torment him, since he is Suou's son. The other twelve-to-eighteen-year-old kids are scanning the adults anxiously, desperate to catch the first glimpse of their family since they'd been forcibly separated. It's a calculated move to make it even more difficult for anyone to escape, because even if the parents manage to get free, they won't leave without their children and vice versa. _Can't_, because they know that their remaining loved ones will be killed immediately if they are found missing. The rebels have generously kept a good portion of the parents alive to inflict upon them that special agony experienced by those who are left behind to wait and hope. This is almost enough to make Hikaru glad that both their parents are dead. Their damnable grandmother, however, is too hardy and cunning for her own good, so there she stands to watch the last of her noble house come to an end.

Hikaru is afraid to meet her eyes. What will he see? Will she cower? Does she tremble? Is she beaten?

He takes in a deep breath and raises his head, and discovers he has to fight down a laugh.

She always said that Hitachiin is a state of mind, a way of life. That she made the name, the name did not make her.

Now Hikaru understands what she means.

He is Hikaru. He is a Hitachiin.

The world doesn't get to tell him what Hitachiins are made of; _he_ tells _them_.

He is so emboldened and fortified by this revelation that he'd all but convinced himself that things would work out... Until Kaoru sucks in a sharp breath and Hikaru turns back to the stage to notice that Mori-senpai and Honey-senpai are with the rebels.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

Immediate blinding betrayal.

The whispers and hissing erupt and spread like wildfire. Everybody knows those faces, those names, those families. Their strongest military leaders had defected. No wonder they hadn't stood a chance.

For the first time in his life, Hikaru thinks, he is experiencing what it is truly like to hate. They attended school together. Their parents knew each other. _They_ knew each other. Hikaru had trusted in their wisdom and character. He willingly spent time with them, let them train him in the gym, let them teach him martial arts, let them help him with his schoolwork. He once sought their approval, and once respected them from the depths of his heart.

Kaoru grips his arm so tightly it hurts, a strangled sound torn from his throat.

Mori-senpai looks straight at Hikaru, and Hikaru maintains eye contact long enough for him to know that Hikaru will never forgive him. Never ever. Mori-senpai may have been trying to say something, probably some weak excuse, whatever. He looks sad and exhausted and Hikaru doesn't give a shit. Nothing that Mori-senpai has to say matters. Hikaru will never believe him again.

The now-familiar face of Prefecture 13's President Kousaka steps up to the microphone. "You've watched the Games enough times, now it's time for you to have fun playing it yourself. I'm sure you must be bored by the same thing year after year, so we've modified the rules a little to keep your interest."

The kids, teenagers and their parents all tense visibly.

Her assistant hands her a flatscreen the size of an A4 paper. She adjusts her glasses and reads, "Firstly, there will be no sponsors. Clearly, all available funds must go towards the rebuilding of our society and infrastructure. Once the Games begin, you will receive no more outside aid."

Several of the people around Hikaru sink into panic. _What did they __expect?_ They should at least have been able to figure out this change, if nothing else.

"Secondly, there will be no mentors and no training period. We cannot spare the facilities and at any rate it seems unnecessary, given how all of you are already seasoned killers from so many years of murdering our children."

Some of the rebels present let out a harsh laugh or a scoff at her words. Yes, this is all about revenge.

"You will also not have any special outfit to wear into the arena. You go as you are."

Hikaru spares a moment to be thankful that he chose what he did today. He has so many secret weapons around his body right this instant, articles of clothing that he had layered on just because he was paranoid enough to imagine that there might be a chance that they might be transferred, might not be allowed back to the place they were being held at before. Never underestimate what a Hitachiin can do with clothes and cloth.

"Thirdly, the number of participants will be equal to the number of years that we have had the Games, including this year. That means – " she has to raise her voice as shouts and cries threaten to drown her out " – we will have 76 participants!"

_God_. He forces himself to stay calm. _Seventy-six_ from the pool of Capitol children. At least they had 2 per pool of Prefecture children, and each prefecture has always been way bigger than the Capitol!

With these odds, there is an unacceptable chance that he might be in the arena at the same time as Kaoru. He wouldn't know what to do if that was the case. The very thought makes him sick.

"38 girls and 38 boys will be chosen according to family," continues the new president, and Hikaru's stomach clenches unbearably. _What does that mean?!_

Beside him, Kaoru is shaking too hard. His face has no colour in it, and his breaths are too quick and laboured. He's been unstable since he lost Ageha, and every day brings about a new deterioration in his state of mind. Hikaru tugs on their linked hands and squashes his brother to himself, willing him not to crumble. Not now, not here.

The president beckons to her underlings, and they begin to carry out far too many reaping bowls out onto the stage. None of the glass bowls even look to be filled... wait, at the bottom, only a few slips in each bowl? That doesn't make sense.

She unfurls a long roll of paper and shows it to her audience. "This is a list of families in the Capitol, arranged by descending order of wealth. Per bowl, one name will be drawn. One-by-one, we will move down the list until all the places have been filled."

It's so clever that Hikaru has to give them credit. This ensures that the most privileged will not escape their clutches. But that is not why he barks out a laugh. No. He laughs because now he knows for sure that he will not have to meet Kaoru in the arena, and that's all he'd needed.

Kaoru's figured it out too. Their family is somewhere in the top ten, so they are guaranteed a spot. One of them will have to play. Who will it be?

His twin lowers his gaze, as if he thinks that will hide his thoughts from Hikaru. The same thing is running through both their minds. Now Kaoru is the greatest obstacle standing between Hikaru and his goal to keep alive the person who is his everything, and he will make sure that Kaoru fails.

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Notes

Kousaka is the Suou family's lawyer. She appears in the later parts of the manga. She is also of common status but worked her way up to the high position she enjoys in Suou Corp.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Almost everything else stays the same. One arena, one winner. The winner is the last one standing. Hikaru doubts the winner will get a life of riches and comfort like their victors had received, but maybe for them just being allowed to be alive is prize enough.

No explicit rules or prohibitions in the arena. Anything goes, then. Good. Hitachiins are famous for ingenuity and creativity. Hikaru wouldn't think twice about playing dirty, and he doesn't want to be penalised if he does.

"... And may the odds be ever in your favour," Kousaka finishes with the traditional greeting, and for some reason it makes Hikaru's blood boil. He hates them, all of them. All of Mori-senpai's morals and all of Kaoru's pity is useless. If these people are happy to do this to others, they deserved everything that happened to them.

"Now," Kousaka says, and the camera moves with her as she strides to the first bowl. Kaoru buries his face in Hikaru's shoulder briefly before resolutely lifting his head and pulling away to stand under his own steam. Hikaru sees the firm set of that delicate jaw, those fiercely glowing amber eyes, that abrupt and complete stillness, and he knows the two of them will fight it out as soon as it gets to their bowl.

The close-up on the big screen shows that there is only one piece of paper in it.

Richest of the rich, with an only child? It's got to be the, "Suou family," Kousaka announces, reaching in and taking out the tiny slip. "Suou Tamaki."

His father, Suou Yuzuru, attempts to climb out of the parents' box and the rebel forces intervene swiftly to pummel him into submission.

"Don't – !" the Suou boy yells pointlessly. "Don't!"

At first Hikaru thinks he is howling at the guards restraining his father... until his mind processes the fact that Blondie is caught up in a physical struggle with the youngest Ootori, trying to keep his hand over his friend's mouth. "Stop it, Kyouya!"

They are roughly the same height and same build though, and conventional wisdom in their society is that nobody keeps an Ootori down for long.

"I volunteer!" That trademark voice rings out, as striking and commanding as the person it belongs to. Ootori Kyouya determinedly wrests himself free of Blondie's grip. "I volunteer as tribute."

A moment of silence, then the shock nearly causes a riot.

"Silence! Order!" On the president's instructions, her troops move to subdue the unruly horde.

Kaoru's hands slap over the lower half of his face in disbelief. They all know each other, you see. That was an act of self-sacrifice by a member of the most closed-off and self-serving family. Did an Ootori _seriously_ just do that? And knowing full well the doom and punishment that awaits, especially for one representing the Suous? Maybe the masses in their distinct prefectures forgot about this since their tributes are generally all strangers to each other, but they in the Capitol all know each other and all have reputations. Fine, not _all_, but at this level, the level of the highest, richest and most powerful, rumours abound and they mix together at parties and attend the same schools.

Hikaru thinks now that he should very much have liked to get to know Ootori Kyouya properly. Obviously someone worth knowing.

The rebels seem uniformly caught by surprise. It's like they didn't think anyone in the Capitol would be capable of an act as great as volunteering, like they'd classified all of them as totally heartless brutes.

"W-Well," Kousaka's assistant stammers, "You can't do that! Your own family isn't called yet! What if you are chosen to take part anyway?"

"No," President Kousaka cuts in, sending a warning glare to her assistant for speaking out of turn. Her eyes gleam with a keen intelligence. "No. Volunteering is not allowed. The results of the draw are final."

_What?!_

Outraged and uncomprehending, Hikaru joins in the public outcry. At least they left an out for the prefectures if they happened to want to save someone they cared about! Some people even trained for it and regarded volunteering as an honour!

He'd expected Ootori to be as upset, and he is, except he doesn't appear confused at all.

Neither is Kaoru, who in spite of his hysterical distress remains miles ahead of Hikaru in terms of social observation and emotional insight. Having puzzled it out with amazing speed, he whispers agitatedly to himself, "They don't want any acts of heroism."

Then Hikaru gets it.

The commoner girl who'd started it all and became the symbol of the revolution – she was a volunteer from a poor and godforsaken Prefecture. She was brave and strong and selfless. She had a goodness in her that even her enemies had to acknowledge, and she was so easy to love even from a distance, even across the chasm of screen to viewer. She was also only fourteen, same age as the twins, and already extraordinary. Fujioka Haruhi had power because she was capable of impressive magnanimity and true virtue despite her circumstances, and the rebels aren't dumb enough to let them use the power that won them the war.

Blondie flings himself at what must really be his best friend in the universe and hugs the stuffing out of him before pushing through the throng and walking up the stage. His steps are remarkably steady, each footfall careful and unrushed. He has in him the dignity that Suou had; she may not have recognised him as her grandson, but this boy is definitely recognisable as hers.

Man, does anyone have worse luck than this guy? Honestly. The gods, if they exist, must hate him. Lucky enough to have Suou blood, unlucky enough to be illegitimate. Lucky enough to be the grandson of the most powerful person around, unlucky enough to have her detest him for his parents' sins. Lucky enough to be born to privilege, unlucky enough to never have enjoyed it. Lucky enough to be a true Suou, unlucky enough to have people accept it only when it was most harmful to him. Lucky enough to have a loyal friend, unlucky enough to have the rules changed on him.

Ootori stands a much, much, _much_ higher chance of survival in that arena. The two fifteen-year-olds are a year ahead of Hikaru in school, so he knows that Ootori predictably excels in everything. Blondie – Tamaki – lived under his illustrious grandmother's iron fist – if anything, he probably understands the rebels the most since they claim to have been oppressed by the late dragon lady. Anyway Ootori is intimidating and noticeably a strong opponent while everything about Blondie just advertises how much of a softie he is – the target on his back is so massive, he's so screwed, and _why oh why_ is he crying for _everyone_ to see, dear god.

Hikaru can see from Ootori's face that he wants Blondie to stop before he does even more damage.

At this point, Kaoru sways on the spot, urgently recapturing Hikaru's attention. "Hikaru, Hikaru," he begins stuttering deliriously, eyes too large and fingers like claws. "No volunteering, no volunteering. Hikaru, oh, no volun – no, how, no, what do I, Hikaru, god, volunteering, I, no – "

_Don't crack_, Hikaru thinks desperately, wishing, begging. _Just hold on_, he clutches his brother. _Please just hold on_, he tells him.

The uproar having subsided somewhat, Kousaka heads to the second bowl. "Ootori family."

At her words, the people in the know begin murmuring. There's no way the Ootoris are right behind the Suous in wealth. At the very least there should be the Hani – _fuck_. Yes. The Haninozukas should have been there. Military money. Defence of the realm was one of the top priorities and received the largest portion of the annual budget. They've managed to get the best of both worlds, huh? Hikaru feels a fresh wave of anger and revulsion. _Traitors._

But where are the other families? Did so many people die in the bombings? Hikaru quickly glances around the square again, this time actually paying attention. Some of the prominent families are gone. Simple as that. So important in life, so trivial in death.

"Ootori Fuyumi."

A groan rises from the people, wrung out of them unwittingly. Fuyumi-san is gracious and generous and one week away from being nineteen and disqualified.

Her three brothers, two younger and one older, all react by jerking forward to volunteer, and this time a mini stampede occurs.

Hikaru grabs his twin and drags him to safety before trying to make sense of the chaos. It is as if _everything_ they knew about the Ootori family is false! Built on misconceptions or based on lies, or what? No, they're too smart, they must be planning something. This must be some elaborate scheme. Ootori Yuuichi is twenty and has no business volunteering or taking part at all, Ootori Akito and Kyouya heard the ban loud and clear and Ootoris do not, as a rule, attempt futilities. _What the hell is going on?!_

"No volunteering!" the loudspeaker blasts at them, annoyance sharp in the voice.

Kaoru claps his hands over his ears, shaking his head frantically.

"Kaoru. Hey! Hey, it's okay! Stay with me, Kaoru." Hikaru clasps his cheeks, forcing him to stop. "Kaoru, come on. Stay with me."

Some scuffle happens elsewhere, and there are too many voices for any of them to be distinguishable.

"Nee-san!" somebody yells. "I said, I volunteer! I'm seventeen! My sister is nineteen, she isn't even eligible! You just need one of us, don't you?!"

Kaoru lets out a consistent whimper that escalates into a whine resembling a wounded animal.

"The next person to volunteer," Kousaka grits out, "will join their sibling or friend in the arena!"

People everywhere are still going nuts, and they need to shut up _right now_ because the noise is doing terrible things to Hikaru's precious twin.

"I volunteer!" Kaoru screams out of nowhere and no reason at all. Hikaru damn near jumps on him to silence him.

Some explosive sound detonates. Everything gets worse as pandemonium reigns, but then Kousaka gets her technicians to make the microphone screech horrendously. When all the people freeze into place, Kousaka repeats herself. "Understand?" She glares at them, steely and uncompromising behind her wire-rimmed glasses. "Each time anyone says those words, you supply one more tribute from your family."

Ootori Akito has gone quiet, equally incensed behind his glasses. Both the oldest and youngest Ootori are nowhere in sight.

"I need hardly remind you that there will be only_ one_ winner," Kousaka says coolly. She adds a few more sentences, no doubt to hammer home the dire consequences of any rash actions, but Hikaru is preoccupied with his brother. Kaoru doesn't appear to be listening to anything at all except whatever it is haunting him in his mind.

It's really awful this time. Hikaru hasn't seen him get this bad before. Nothing seems to bring him back.

"...chiin family."

_The fuck?!_ Hikaru gasps, barely avoiding snapping his neck from how violently he'd turned. There is no way on earth they are third in wealth! Exactly how many people perished?!

Kaoru abruptly becomes more stone than human. The transformation is freakish.

_Please let it be me_, Hikaru manages to send a prayer heavenward in the seconds before Kousaka speaks again.

But the prayer must not have reached any god, because, "Hitachiin Kaoru."

Kaoru sags in relief and breaks into a smile, on the verge of giddy laughter. Meanwhile, Hikaru is clearly reeling with anguish and dread. He can't let Kaoru go in! He _can't_. Kaoru as he is now will definitely die. He has virtually no will to live and neither his mind nor body are functioning at the necessary level for survival in this ruthless game!

At this critical moment, Hikaru suddenly remembers.

They'd been swept away by the reactions and difficulties of all these _normal_ people. Kaoru's own breakdown had made the two of them blind and helpless with fear. But thank god for it and the way it dulls Kaoru's natural intelligence because he hasn't realized that they, the Hitachiin twins, can do what none of the Ootoris could.

Kaoru used to be Hikaru on a regular basis. But now Kaoru hates himself. He cannot forgive the twin who killed their sister, the twin who made that mistake, the twin he views as useless and deserving of death and suffering. As that twin bears the name 'Kaoru', since that day Kaoru has drawn very clean separating lines between them and never again has he tried to blend or blur them together. Kaoru must have decided never to be Hikaru again as he thinks he will taint Hikaru with that crime...

He's forgotten that he can still be Hikaru, and that Hikaru can be him.

Hikaru wraps himself around his brother for a hug goodbye, and Kaoru reciprocates easily. Kaoru accepts and returns the lingering kiss pressed intimately on the cheek as well. When Hikaru rests their foreheads together and smiles lovingly at him, he smiles back. "Take care of yourself," Hikaru breathes, and Kaoru nods with the solemnity of a warrior going into battle. Hikaru steps away from him, and he doesn't object.

But then, Hikaru begins to walk backwards until their fingertips slide off of each other's, swivels around and pushes his way though in the direction of the stage.

As he is ascending the steps, a familiar voice starts screaming.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE**

"HIKARU! NO! _HIKARU!_" Kaoru shrieks insanely, over and over. He'd been so relieved that his name was called that he obviously didn't think Hikaru would sabotage him.

At the corner of the stage, Honey-senpai makes an abortive move forwards like he wants to go to Kaoru. As Hikaru remembers that the seniors are able to distinguish between them, his blood chills in his veins and he adjusts his body language rightaway, putting on the best imitation of his twin he can produce. He withdraws into his core a little, lifting his shoulders a fraction higher and keeping them tense, unclenches his fists from their aggressive position and splays his hands across his face instead. Softly and resignedly, with pain threaded through, Hikaru replies soothingly, "Shh, Hikaru, they pulled out my name so I have to do this. It'll be okay. Don't worry, Hikaru."

_"I'M KAORU!"_ Kaoru cries in protest, so piercing and shrill that everyone flinches back. The guards have made their way to him and are holding him back, although he is fighting them with such maniacal energy that they can't keep their grip on him. "I'm Kaoru I'm Kaoru!" he insists with the raw, open anguish of someone whose identity has been ripped from them. "They called my name! _Mine!_ NOOOOOO!"

He sounds at once so sure of who he is and so lost about what to do – he knows he is Kaoru but Hikaru keeps calling him 'Hikaru' and it's fucking with his already unbalanced mind in such a dangerous manner that Hikaru realizes, too late, that this may be the thing that pushes his brother over the edge permanently.

Kousaka tries to get things moving again, but her people can't get Kaoru under control; he refuses to be suppressed and is in fact getting worse and worse – rabidly and incoherently howling out whatever he can, clawing at the guards as if possessed. The new president's eyes narrow to deadly slits, and fear strikes Hikaru's heart.

"Stop it, Hikaru," he pleads, hating how choked and small he sounds. Fuck the strategy against appearing like a weakling; his twin is both his strength and his weakness, and it's not like that's some big secret. "Hikaru, come on. Please, Hikaru. Shhh, shh, it's okay. Stop, _please_!"

And Kaoru does. He suddenly goes quiet, and it's a thousand times worse than his wailing.

Something reckless and delirious flashes in his eyes, and Hikaru knows in his heart that the next words out of Kaoru's mouth will be _'I volunteer'_.

_Don't do it!_ He screams, too terrified. _Don't do it!_

But his throat is locked up, and he's going to fail his family at the most critical moment...!

"Shut up, Hikaru!"

_Who is it?! Who?!_ Who is the person who derailed Kaoru at a time when Hikaru couldn't?

"Don't say anything," orders the Suou boy, effortlessly filling the entire stage and square with his presence. _Holy shit_, he _is_ his grandmother's heir. His brilliant violet eyes pin Kaoru to the spot. "Don't do it, Hikaru. It's stupid. Gag him and take him away!"

The guards automatically obey – so lordly is his demeanour – and it takes everyone more than a whole minute before it sinks in that they are carrying out the instructions of the enemy. "Stop!" Kousaka yells, seriously pissed off, and her troops cease all movement from their location at the boundary of the square.

Damn it. _DAMN IT._ They'd almost removed Kaoru from the scene already!

Kousaka whirls around to face Hikaru, and Hikaru understands that because they didn't manage to get away with it, Blondie has invited disaster on their heads. He embarrassed their leader, and now someone has to pay. Since they have both expressed concern for Kaoru, the odds are that it's gonna be Kaoru.

"Where is the Hitachiin family?" asks the president.

Far away, the twins' grandmother rises to her feet like a legendary dragon lifting her head, regal and smooth and frustratingly superior right down to the tip of the longest stem sticking out of her hair. She was President Suou's friend, and it shows. It's impossible to mistake the power that naturally emanates from these women.

"Which one is Kaoru?"

Their grandmother's face remains calm and unperturbed even though she must know that Kousaka is making her choose which of her grandsons to send to his death. Hikaru stares at her, willing her to choose him. He's more ruthless than Kaoru and less broken, he has to be the one to go in. _Figure it out, old bat, come on!_ Ageha is not eligible for the Games and thus should have been sent to the makeshift shelter at the National Museum that housed the families of the potential contestants, so the fact that Ageha was not returned to their grandmother should have indicated to her that her own heir is dead. The old woman is sharp, she couldn't have failed to notice Kaoru's erratic behaviour even before any names were drawn. _Figure out that something happened, figure out that Kaoru won't make it!_

The Hitachiin matriarch slides her gaze to the gagged, crying twin at the side, then to the one on the stage with the fire burning in his soul.

"Tch," his grandmother says, a smirk hiding at the corner of her lips. Hikaru can almost hear the "idiot brat" she undoubtedly wanted to add. _You better come back alive, dum-dum._ "You have the right boy, President."

Hikaru closes his eyes and rocks slightly backwards in relief, but because he does not smile, it surely looks like betrayal to the audience.

Kaoru, on the other hand, reels with real betrayal. He screams through the cloth lodged in his mouth, probably a bunch of expletives at their grandmother. The... _spell_ that the Suou boy had placed on Kaoru seems to have dissipated and now there is no controlling him, not after everyone he's ever loved basically chose not to take his side.

"_Dummy_," their grandmother says severely, beginning to make her way to him. The crowd parts for her as automatically as they listened to Blondie. "There are ways to be memorable without making a scene," she continues like delivering one of their family precepts, like she is lecturing the twins for not acting properly at a party. "Come quietly with me at once."

Kaoru crumples, going slack. His abrupt lack of resistance causes the guards to release him, and he stumbles off in the direction of their remaining family member. He's about five steps away from her when Hikaru catches a movement at the corner of his vision, a glint of metal... _shittheyinsultedtherebelcommandagain – _

The next instant, there is the sound of a gunshot and blood splatters across Kaoru's face and front.

He stands there, and blinks, and gazes down at himself. He can't comprehend what has happened, and he doesn't catch their grandmother when her body collapses to the ground before his feet.

Hikaru is not conscious of moving, but he must have tried because familiar strong arms are holding him back. "GRANDMOTHER!" someone howls from someplace distant. Hikaru hopes never to hear such a voice again. "_GRANDMOTHER!_ GRANDMOTHER!" But Kaoru is still frozen there in a daze, so who else has the right to call Hitachiin Kazuha their grandmother?

"I didn't give you permission to move," Kousaka says mildly as her assistant returns his gun to the holster in his belt. "Let that be a lesson to the rest of you parents."

Kaoru falls to his knees and crawls towards the bright red-colored head crowned with a garden of flowers while that horrid dying-animal voice keeps calling for its grandmother. Mori-senpai is hugging Hikaru for an unknown reason, and wait, hasn't Hikaru decided not to have anything to do with him ever again?

Nobody moves. Nobody moves to help. _Why?!_

With trembling fingers, a shell shocked Kaoru lifts as much of their gasping, bleeding grandmother into his arms as he can. He attempts to carry her but the sheer weight of her fine garments – those folds and knots of heavy silk and fabric – as well as his muscle wastage from the famine make it a task beyond his capabilities. So he sits there and cradles her and begs the people around him and tries again and again and fails again and again.

Later on, and for the rest of his life, whenever Hikaru thinks back to this moment, he will always die a little bit inside when he remembers how nobody came to Kaoru's aid. He will never forget how, in the middle of a very crowded square the person he loved more than life itself publicly and torturously lost his mind, and how not a single person offered comfort or support.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

And maybe that was the beginning of everything.

Because one person tried, though his intentions did not reach the recipient.

Seeing that Hikaru is restrained, Suou rashly jumps off the stage and gets a beating for all his trouble. "Kyouya!" he yells amidst the fists, as if he thinks his Ootori can save him. "Kyouya! Kyouya!"

Ootori Kyouya appears, but instead of going to his friend, he grabs Kaoru none-too-gently and drags him away forcibly.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM! _Don't!_ Touch! Him!" Hikaru shrieks like he thinks Kyouya is out to kill his twin. "Where are you taking him?! Don't touch – _mmph_!" Mori-senpai claps a large hand over Hikaru's mouth. His touch still feels comforting instead of threatening even though he is a lying arsehole.

Beside them, Fuyumi-san takes a half step forward, her kind face emptied of happiness. "Akito!"

Her younger brother rushes to the body of Hikaru's grandmother and, so deftly and swiftly that it boggles the mind, applies pressure to the wound and bandages it up with some strips that he conjures up like magic. He, too, tries to lift the Hitachiin matriarch to clear out of the place as soon as possible, but he also can't manage it; his lips move like he's saying, "Damn Hitachiins!", but then when Hikaru hears his voice, he is saying, "Nii-san!"

The last Ootori sibling turns up beside him and they haul Hikaru's grandmother away as quick and efficient as they'd moved in.

Slowly, Mori-senpai releases Hikaru and steps back.

Blondie is tossed back up onto the stage in a heap. He clambers to his feet and grins – fucking _grins_ at Hikaru, like he's being reassuring or something. _Reassuring what?!_ What is there to be reassuring about?! They don't know each other.

Hikaru gathers himself.

Yes, he is bad at controlling his emotions usually, but he _sure as hell_ can make himself hide his feelings out of sheer spite. He scowls at the idiot to make it plenty clear to everyone and especially the rebels that he wants nothing to do with him. Hikaru is not suicidal, no thank you. Hikaru is going to make it back to Kaoru and their grandmother, who will survive this like she has survived everything. That demon is immortal by definition. She won't die. She _can't_ die.

Kousaka lets out a calculated small exhale like she is bored and unimpressed with their histrionics before she carries on. She is more like the late President Suou than she knows, and Hikaru wonders what will happen to him if he tells her that.

The reaping goes ahead. Some of Hikaru's classmates are called – his ex-class-president, famed scaredy cat in their class. His ex-vice-class-president, a cheerful and gracious girl who does not know that the class president is deeply in love with her. The last person reaped is this boy with a face to rival a monster, the only son of one of the gangster clans at the outskirts of the Capitol, D-class in prestige but apparently quite a bit richer than some of the B-class people.

But, wait... How did the draw even get anywhere near the D-class in the first place?

It is then that Hikaru realises that all of the A-class families have a tribute in the Games. For this to have occurred, their ranks must have been completely decimated.

Rolling up her documents, President Kousaka nods. "I'm sure all of you are looking forward to the opening ceremony tonight. It is required watching for everyone; be prepared by 5 pm when the guards will go around to your shelters to collect you and direct you to your designated watching area."

To her people, she says, "Let's go."

They snap to it, and Hikaru finds himself marched into what was once the Supreme Court building along with the rest of the kids he will now have to kill.


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

To say that Hikaru was surprised when Mori-senpai walked in is a gross understatement. He'd been left for half an hour in one of the many interview rooms that lawyers would have used in order to have private conferences with their clients on the day of their trial. No reason provided, just aimless waiting and anticipation building.

Well, today is the day of Hikaru's trial, and Mori-senpai wanted to be a lawyer. Damn him.

Hikaru refuses to even look at the guy.

For such a tall and well-built man, Mori-senpai is capable of amazing ninja feats, invisible so as not to be noticed. He seats himself without any noise at all, not the sound of chair legs scraping against carpet nor that of clumsy body colliding against furniture.

"Hikaru," Mori-senpai says quietly, and Hikaru stiffens at the use of the correct name. If Mori-senpai rats him out, he really will launch himself at the guy and tear his eyes out.

The urge to reply, "I'm Kaoru, and you can fuck off," almost overwhelms Hikaru, but then he doesn't know why Mori-senpai is here and who else is watching. That sort of response will only confirm that he truly is Hikaru. Kaoru's style is passive-aggressive and emotionally manipulative, so Hikaru stays aloof like he hadn't heard and like Mori-senpai is dirt.

It's difficult, because all he wants to do is shout and demand answers. Mori-senpai doesn't volunteer any information because he barely talks anyway, and they end up stewing beside each other for another fifteen minutes without any explanation as to the presence of his senior. Hikaru wants to hit him for being so calm.

Finally Mori-senpai rises from the table.

He rests his palm on Hikaru's head like he thinks he still has the right to treat Hikaru with affection, and Hikaru jerks away with a venomous glare.

"Remember your training."

With that, he leaves.

_What was that all about?!_

He doesn't have time to dwell on it as he receives yet another unexpected guest.

Worry drives him to his feet and he bursts out anxiously, "Where's my twin?! Is he okay?! My grandmother?!"

"Your brother is unconscious and will remain so for at least six hours," Ootori Kyouya responds obligingly, "and your grandmother is under the care of my family. Our supplies and access to equipment and drugs have been drastically limited, but even in the current state of the world there is still no medical facility that rivals that of the Ootori family. If... If she does not make it, she does not make it. It will not be for lack of treatment."

The relief is too much for Hikaru. He falls back onto his chair, his limbs shaking despite his best efforts to smother it. When he feels like he can speak again, he says, "_Thank you_, Ootori-senpai. Seriously – I can't thank you enough."

Ootori Kyouya smoothly corrects him with a, "Yes, you can," and Hikaru recalls with a rush of ice in his veins their other conventional wisdom that owing an Ootori is worse than owing the devil.

"_Wow_," Hikaru marvels, taken aback despite himself. His gratitude had evaporated in less than a second. "You don't waste any time, do you."

"There is no time to waste," Ootori points out with a frigid smile, cutting a swift glance to the clock. "Visiting ends at 2."

"Vi-Visiting?" Hikaru asks, confused.

"Yes," Ootori says coolly, sliding into the chair across. "There is nothing like the agony of final goodbyes to ensure that the parents and siblings go back to their shelters crying to terrify the rest into obedience. It also has the lucky side effect of sending contestants into the arena with a reinforced will to live for the sake of their family, which makes them far more likely to take extreme action and show no mercy. Visiting is to last for an hour, of which three quarters have now passed. Shall we get down to business?"

His attitude rubs Hikaru the wrong way, so even though he knows he should not antagonise the older boy, he can't help it. "Why not just ask your sister to take care of your little... _friend_."

Ootori takes offence, just like Hikaru had known he would. He's not a Hitachiin for nothing – if he can't make a person's blood boil with only his tone, words and body language, he's not worth his salt.

"I don't think you understand your situation," Ootori says pleasantly, contradicted by the tightness in his voice and his murderous aura. "I will continue to care for what remains of your family, but I can hardly do a good job if I'm distracted."

"Oh I understand just fine." Hikaru's lip curls in contempt. "You're holding my family hostage to force me to help that useless piece of dead weight. Better not put him with your sister cos you know anyone he's with is doomed, don't you?"

Ootori doesn't take the bait.

"I wonder, who is it you want to come out of these Games? Your sister, or dead weight?" Hikaru asks him, actually vaguely curious. "Cos, you know, even if dead weight is the last one standing, implausible though that already is, he'll remain a burden as long as he is Suou's grandson, which he is."

"I wonder," Ootori counters with a sneer, "which twin is it I'm speaking to? Kaoru, or Hikaru? Because, you know – " he leans forward, invading Hikaru's personal space " – even if the twin in the hospital bed is unconscious, if he proves to be Kaoru, I'm certain our new president will have no problem sending a defenseless invalid into the arena, which he is."

Hikaru decides then and there that Ootori Kyouya is someone he either respects or hates. There is no inbetween for them. And, he will never admit it but he is ridiculously thankful that he will not have to meet this boy in the arena.

They stare at each other, neither backing down even though they both know that Ootori wins. He has all the leverage. Hikaru will not be able to confirm whether he is keeping his word whereas he will get to watch Hikaru's every movement on the big screen all day, every day. There is no doubt in Hikaru's mind that such a cold-blooded person would leave Hikaru's family to rot if something bad happens to his precious friend.

Through the glass panel in the door, Hikaru can see more and more people filing past. Ootori follows his line of sight, and stands.

"Do your best..." he says, the barest hint of smugness showing. He appears to consider something for a while like tossing up options, and having decided, lowers his volume to say one final word, "... Hikaru."


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

They are given several hours and some decent amenities to clean up properly. Hikaru can't figure out why. Why give them the luxury of a bath – soap, clean water, exfoliating scrubs, towels – and why let them brush their teeth and do their hair and even apply makeup if they want?

He spends the first hour poking around suspiciously in the bathroom that he'd been locked into, in the place where prefecture tributes used to undergo their makeovers from paupers to princes or princesses. Something is off and he doesn't like it. He's not about to leap headfirst into dubious kindness, especially not after his encounter with Ootori Kyouya.

Then, by sheer chance, he overhears the reason for this extravagance: Hoshakuji Renge.

Still alive, but not reaped. Hikaru's classmate, so an A-class kid. Her father was the last head Gamemaker of the Games, and their family disappeared one day. They must have defected.

She stomps past his bathroom along with a battalion of people, gets annoyed, and fortunately stomps back to where Hikaru can eavesdrop.

"No! This isn't enough!" she declares impatiently at her assistants. "We need to quality check them before we allow them in front of a camera! Didn't my father tell you when we first went over to your camp? The reason why the Games worked so well for so long is because they're _entertaining_!"

She makes the workers unearth the equipment meant for beautifying the tributes and tells each of them to wipe the machines down to prepare them for operation.

"But, Renge-san, the president said – "

"We aren't giving them new clothes! But we _have_ to do something to enhance them! When something is fun, the horror doesn't register. If you send in a group of ugly, tired, scraggy-looking kids, they'll look human and you're in trouble! The more glamorous they look, the more they'll feel like untouchable, inhuman superstars. You have a Hitachiin, don't you? He's a model, isn't he? Don't you know that nobody dared to have him because he was so flawless in the posters? Nobody had the courage to even ask him out! That's what you want!"

She pauses in her lecture, and her heels click on the floor directly outside Hikaru's bathroom door.

"You want to make your tributes _unreal_."

Hikaru has never thought of Renge as evil. Did he think she was overenthusiastic? Hell yes. The girl could always eat three bowls of rice. Did he think she could be irritating? Yeah, everyone thought so, because she constantly interfered whenever she liked it. Did she have a lot of obscure and ludicrous knowledge that she spouted daily to any poor sucker who happened to cross her path? Duh. Was she even human, given that she never needed to breathe while in her tirades? That's still up for debate.

But regardless of what one thought of Renge, she was _not_ a person who got her kicks out of harming others. Yet here she is, using her Gamemaker heritage and her maniac energy and her enormous passion to deal massive damage to what should have been her people. This is a girl who understands, deeply and instinctively, what audiences like to see. She is the number one fan of too many things to count – she _understands_ obsession and the factors that create obsession, she knows about emotional investment and how to get the hooks of attachment to sink in. This girl is the Queen of Moe.

In fact, Renge is so good at marketing and guaranteeing consumer satisfaction that Ootori Kyouya tolerates her chatty presence around him in school; they collaborate on certain school events and projects. It's an open secret that she's in love with him, but it's equally obvious that he doesn't really reciprocate, though he nearly always takes her advice on any PR issue. Seriously. Like 99% of the time, which in Ootori terms shows a staggering trust in someone's judgement.

Maybe she thinks this is a game. She's being played for a fool – it's too easy for the rebels to use someone who just wants to create fantasies and live in them. Like a dimwitted kid, if you give her toys, she will play. And if she's playing with them, they really are _screwed_.

"If they are nothing more than actors on a screen," Renge is saying, "nothing that happens to them will feel real. That's how you make people watch atrocities with their own eyes and not lift a finger to help." Something clatters to the ground and rolls. "Ugh," she heaves, like she's bending over, "where's my stupid pen – so all of you better listen to me and START WORKING!"

A flurry of noise signals that her workers have sprung into action.

Five minutes ago upon hearing her voice Hikaru had already decided to hate her. Everything else aside, she is a defector.

So when a piece of paper gets jammed through the gap at the bottom of the door, he doesn't know what to think.

He picks it up. The texture of the little slip tells him that it is dissolvable paper – paper that disintegrates in two seconds upon contact with any liquid, including saliva. Plenty of them use this paper to pass notes in class, stuffing the incriminating evidence into their mouths if they are in danger of being caught. It doesn't taste bad.

_Be real and UNFORGETTABLE, Kaoru-kun_, it says.

What the heck. She'd been wholly prepared to portray him as a far removed casualty earlier, and now _this_?!

Revolted, Hikaru washes the note down the sink and decides to begin grooming and decorating himself. Since it's safe, he'll use what he's been given. In spite of Renge's strategy, it's true the beautiful tributes often last longer – the sponsors were directly responsible for that, but Hikaru believes that the Gamemakers also apply a lighter touch, at least during the first half, to maximise the watching value of the show.

While sitting in the bath, and while using the sink, he drinks a huge amount of water from the taps, figuring that it'll be much easier to pee in the arena than to find fresh water.


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE**

Renge gets her way, because they are made to line up for a quality check at 5 pm. The bedraggled tributes amongst them are pulled aside for mini makeovers that wouldn't break the meagre budget, and at 5.30 pm they are loaded into the hovercraft and ready to go.

After the tracker is inserted into his arm, Hikaru leans back in his chair and lets himself think about Kaoru. His brother probably isn't awake yet – once he is, he will definitely insist on seeing the Games. That is, if he still knows or remembers anything... if he's still... _sane_.

Though it hurts him, Hikaru can deal with a brother who's not all there. What he's concerned about is what will happen to Kaoru between now and the time when Hikaru goes back to him. Because Hikaru – Hikaru _will_ protect Kaoru from _anything_. But nobody else will – not Honey-senpai or Mori-senpai or any heartless Ootori.

And now Hikaru isn't even sure if he will ever make it back, because he is going to have to babysit the Suou boy. The rebels will probably blow him up where he stands for attempting to ally himself with persona non grata #1. The best thing for him to do, he decides, is to stalk Suou and watch over him from a distance. No way is Hikaru going to actually travel or – or _live_ with him or some shit. God, Blondie feels like _such_ a burden and they haven't even started!

The mood in the hovercraft is depressing and sombre. Across from Hikaru sits the boy who was once their class president, Soga Kazukiyo. Hikaru actually really liked him, even though all he'd ever done was tease the class president mercilessly. If there is a person on earth whom Hikaru could describe as being 'harmless', it would've been this boy. He has a remarkably sweet temper and a really pure love for their vice-president, Kurakano Momoka, who's 6 seats away on Hikaru's left. It's tragic, he never got to tell her how he feels.

Gangster boy's name is apparently Bossa Nova, which strikes Hikaru as a very unusual name to give a kid. He might be half Brazilian or something?

There are so many tributes that it must be hard to remember even a quarter of them. Hikaru manages it only because he is a Hitachiin and also because he's seen these faces in school or during parties before. He cannot imagine how most of the audience watching will be able to absorb or care about such a large group – their grandmother told them that the fiftieth Quarter Quell was pretty blah for this reason, at least till the numbers whittled down enough for people to decisively pick their favourites and make good predictions. Not only that, none of them have been introduced to the wider audience via televised interviews and such. They're nothing but fodder.

Judging by physicality, the ones to look out for would be the sportspeople. Kuze Takeshi is here, the ace of the school baseball team and a marathon runner are also here, as well as some people who hail from the martial arts clubs – there're two judo dudes and one karate girl and one archer. If it wasn't for the nervousness seeping out of their pores, they would feel like Careers.

But only one of them gives off the air of a Career, and it somehow doesn't surprise Hikaru that Ootori Fuyumi, with her smooth hands that have never experienced manual labour, her perfect unblemished skin, her not-a-strand-out-of-place hair and her waist as wide as a hand-span is the person who comes across as composed, alert, prepared and thoroughly intimidating.

Hikaru _really_ resents Ootori Kyouya now. Such a paragon of excellence in his sister, and he picks _Hikaru_ to care for his boytoy.

Said boytoy is fiddling with the belts strapping him down across his chest, looking perplexingly innocent and angelic. It pisses Hikaru off something _fierce_ to look at Blondie, so he willfully shuts his eyes and turns away. Right now the one person that Hikaru wouldn't hesitate to eliminate at the initial bloodbath is the very guy he's supposed to protect.

The windows of the hovercraft black out and the artificial lighting comes on. Soon, they touch down and guards pour in to separately escort them to the waiting rooms. When the countdown over the PA system gets to ten seconds, Hikaru steps onto the circular metal plate.

He's _petrified_.

At precisely 6 pm that evening, on the opening day of the 76th annual Hunger Games, Hikaru catches his first glimpse of the arena.

He's not sure why he finds it funny, but laughter rises up at the back of his throat. He recognises the place.

The arena is the Capitol.

.

– _fin_ –

.

_Preview for possible Part II: **Dandelion in the Spring**_

_A reconstructed Capitol city centre, to be exact. As it was in all its glory before the war, all buildings intact and roads clean and smooth. No debris, no corpses, no sign of any damage._

_It is perfect, it is familiar, and it evokes in Hikaru a sickening rush of homesickness._


End file.
